November 2018 Release Notes
from itch.io 'Update 0.43 - November-27-2018' Spent all morning trying to figure out why game wont load on Edge browser (stuck at 99%) with no luck. So for now please use Chrome or Fire Fox if you’d like to play. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: * Fixed a crash when trying to swap places with a frozen ally. * Fixed? issue with particle effects not disappearing. This also resulted in freezes when the level up graphic failed to clear. I don’t have this issue on my comp so let me know if it persists. * Fixed items on mouse cursor hidden behind the HUD. * Fixed the descriptions of the elemental spell power stats. * Added a bunch of extra tests to try to stop players from leveling up and dying in the same turn resulting in a soft crash. * Fixed: items spawned on bear traps and auto explore locking up trying repeatedly to attack the trap. USER_INTERFACE: * Gave broad axes a proper description. * Added text to top of screen when standing on stairs to indicate that < and > are used for ascend / descend. MECHANICS_AND_CONTENT: * Changed poison staves to deal a set amount of damage over 4 turns and re-balanced damage to compensate. * Casters now start with the staff of their themed element (with reduced power), renamed the existing staves ‘Greater Staves’. 'Update 0.42 - November-26-2018' Game is now uploaded on Kongregate, voting is very appreciated to help it place in a nice solid spot. Will be continuing web updates for about 2-3 weeks, mostly fixing bugs, polishing, balancing, some simple content that won't break anything (vaults, static levels, uniques monsters and the like). Then onward to Steam. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: * Fixed crash when running out of ammo in your quick slot. * Made it so you can’t see the items in chests when mousing over before opening them (this was a bug). * Fixed keen hearing so it actually works. * Player now starts on the safest possible tile on the first dungeon level (no more starting between 3 archers) * Added warning text and instructions at start of game for browsers that have site data disabled (This is whats causing loading to freeze at 99% for many people. * Fixed bug with deaths being counted multiple times. USER_INTERFACE: * Added mouse over descriptions to all stats in the character menu. * Undead are now immune to Infectious Disease which means that it won’t spread on the Necromancers summoned skeletons. KONGREGATE_SPECIFIC: * Integration with stats and high scores. 'Update 0.39 - November-23-2018' Last update before uploading to Kongregate in a few hours. Will obviously be continuing to update here, on Kong and on Newgrounds for the next few weeks before going to Steam trying to get all the bugs and balance worked out as much as possible and possibly adding some new minor content. QUICK_SLOT: * Quick slot does not show up on the merchant menu, enchantment etc. * Attacking with the weapon in your quick slot temporarily swaps to it for purposes of your stats in the next turn ex. when all the enemies hit you, your shield wont be counted if you quick fired a bow. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: * Need to add back mindless property to stuff like fire balls, inferno orbs etc. * Goblin bombers are not throwing bombs adjacent * Bloats don't burst into gas due to fire burning it * Fixed location of acquirement text MISC: * Disable race selection for web release * Daily challenge achievements: win streaks * Remove posting stats to the stat server for now * Record and show wins / losses for each class + win streaks 'Update 0.38 - November-22-2018' BUGS_AND_CRASHES:*Fixed the transfer table crash w/ charms *Fixed it so you can cancel abilities with numkeys and clicking on them again. *Fixed so you can stop auto exploring with e *Fixed storm chopper crash *Charging or sprinting over a bear trap (from within a poison cloud) will no longer soft lock game. *Added a final test at end of level gen to determine if there are disconnected areas and force a regen of the level. GEN_FROM_SEED: *Can now gen the entire dungeon from a seed, resulting in identical levels each time. *This is enormously useful for debugging since its been helping me find a whole bunch of generation bugs since I can recreate the exact level and fix them. I actually have been able to identify and fix a bunch of those odd cases we were getting with no stairs appearing and otherwise disconnected levels. *Your seed is stored in gs.seed if you want to reference it for bug reports, make sure to also note the zone name and level you are on. *Using this gen I've added a daily challenge mode that selects a random class and puts you in a dungeon genned from that days seed i.e. everyone should get the same exact dungeon. *This mode will be locked when the game goes live to only allow you to try it once per day. MISC: *Some slight performance upgrades to the mini-map so be on the lookout for it behaving oddly since I had to rewrite a lot of its code (its a pretty big performance hog). *Intending to work on some minimal stat tracking before release just to give you a log of all your games, wins / losses per class, your win / loss ratio on daily challenges etc. This stuff can then get tied into kongs stat tracking, the web tracker and eventually steams achievement tracking and leader boards. 'Update 0.37 - November-20-2018' Planning to do the web release on Friday, November-23-2018, so just working through a bunch of last minute fixes and balancing here. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: *Floating special rooms ex. bee nests, ant nests, the ballista room etc. were set to spawn all the time so this has been reduced back to its intended rarity (no idea how long this has been like this). *Charmed priests will not constantly haste the player over and over again while resting or moving about the level (only when enemies are in view). *Fixed storm statues range so that they can hit the player at max range (previously there was a distance from which player could hit them and they could not retaliate.) *Fixed resistance potion and bless status effects not actually granting resistance. *Sustained effects that are turned on should show green box even when player is low on mana. *Fixed issue with being unable to turn off a sustained effect when low on mana. *Fixed charms displaying "null" for the non-bracketed value. *Fixed HP going over max when training fortitude skill. *Transferring mods on wands will recharge the wand to full and make sure that the charges do not exceed the new value. *Fixed aquatic enemies swimming on top of ice. *Blocked off the Yendor end vaults so that player doesn't accidentally fall into them. *Fixed auto explore not picking up meat *Fixed flaming hands insta crash *Fixed camera occasionally getting stuck in corners of the level on the main menu screen. SOUNDS: *Added sound effect to teleport pads in Arcane Tower. *Added a sound when picking up the goblet. *Added a sound when ice bombs are summoned by enemies. *Added sound to keys *Wands now have the same sound as rings rather than potions. BALANCE_AND_MECHANICS: *Changed rogue to use standard exp leveling (he's hard to balance atm, so in the future when I split rogues into assassins vs rogues, I'll look back into tuning this). *Allow enemy spot chance to actually reach 0% if you have high enough stealth. *Reduced the number of items that drop in the game slightly through various means since it was getting out of hand at later levels. *Also made the number of items that drop per game more consistent. The range was pretty absurd, something like 60-120 based purely on luck. *Added a better version of the hand axe: broad axe, so that barbarians are not starting with what is arguably the best in slot weapon. *Increased the mod of equipment summoned from wishing wells and scrolls. *Removed the odd baseMod 1 from many items like attribute rings since it tends to be needlessly confusing. They now start at +3 to their stat to make them more immediately useful. *Every point of stealth (gained from dex, skill, or items), now adds +5% to your critical hit damage for all damage types. This includes stuff like shocking enemies in water or igniting enemies on oil. This makes stealth not completely useless to all characters and makes the rogue significantly more powerful in combat. *Removed the mindless property from NPCs since it tends to make the enchanter extremely hard to play based purely on the luck of what zones you get. (Will need to handle fire orbs and such separately). *Reduced barbarians rage damage bonus to just +1 per rage since its quite frankly insane how strong he is right now. *Made deflect talent last a bit longer *Made resistance potions also heal you to full and cure physical ailments when used to make it more generally useful. *Made power potions restore mana and cooldowns to make it more generally useful. INTERFACE: *Created a slot in which weapons can be placed (quick slot) which will use the weapon with a right click on the mouse. This is very useful for putting ranged weapons that you want to use. Essentially this creates no mechanical difference in the game but reduces the tedium of constantly swapping weapons. (Still need to handle the shield disadvantage when you put something like a bow here). *This quick slot can be fired as an auto attack w/ q in the same way that your primary weapon is used with tab *Removed the min range from bows since its honestly just kind of annoying (if bows are OP there needs to be a better way to balance them rather than just annoying the player). *If you try to rest with nearby enemies it will display 'nearby enemies' rather then falsely displaying the rest pop up text. *resting (shift + wait), while full hp / full mp will rest 10 turns in order to help speed up recharging cooldowns. *Sprint and charge abilities now show the path that they will take when using them. *Added full heal / full energy text with potions (same as fountains). MISC: *Poison clouds are now flammable and will spread fire. *Fire created on water will create steam. *Shock will now spread across steam and freezing clouds. *Fire destroys freezing clouds. *Skeleton corpses are unstable *You can now summon books with acquirement *Strafe attack will not trigger against reflective enemies. *Removed darts from mages starting inventory. GRAPHICS: *Attunement spell icons *Mesmerize spell icon *Confusion spell icon *Smite attack animation 'Update 0.36 - November-15-2018' BUGS_AND_CRASHES: *Fixed strafe shooting so it doesn't work when moving backwards. *Fixed crystal chests not opening *Fixed issue where you were unable to shoot ranged weapons over pits or fire shrooms. *Fixed cone of cold crash *Removed pits from Arcane Tower (had forgot about the issue of them blocking teleport pads) *Fixed dungeon brick walls appearing around the outsides of some caves. *Removed an extra line from the description of hellfire scrolls. BALANCE_GOALS: *Generally make the game easier across all levels (pretty much everyone here is at this point and expert so need to consider new players). *Generally make all special abilities more impactful (I prefer the careful and correct use of abilities to be OP rather than just stacking base stats and making your character invincible with just raw basic attacks and defense). *Make warriors generally stronger as he is intended as an easier beginner character. *Make barbarians fit their glass cannon role better i.e. more damage potential less defense. *Generally try to make the various melee weapons more tempting to use. I'm finding my casters nearly always stick with their staff, my rangers exclusively use their ranged, only swapping due to the min range thing (which I'm not a fan of). Barbarians just stick with the hand axe exclusively and only really the warrior changes weapon due to the general shittyness of his short sword. BALANCE_AND_MECHANICS: *Gave short swords the same parry bonus as other swords (20%) *Removed fortitude from barbarians initial talents *Gave barbarians Blood Lust as an initial talent which increases their max rage. *Made Shields Up ability deal damage as a specialAttack *specialAttack damage is now always max damage: power strike, power shot, tunnel shot and now Shields Up *Increased the initial power of nearly every player (particularly casters). This makes the early game a bit easier and also makes it more tempting to grab the first level of really any talent since they tend to pack a bigger punch right away. *Gave warriors charge in their initial talent list. *Increased blunt weapon damage: mace 6=>8 and Hammer 8=>10 making them the highest base damage melee weapons (along with their knock back). *Increased pole arm damage 4=>6 and halberd: 6=>8 *Gave shields a 20% chance to block projectiles (swords now 'parry' melee attacks). 'Update 0.35 - November-14-2018' I'm pretty much considering the project feature complete at this point as far as the web release goes. I've got like 1000 little things that I'd like to still do but its getting to the point where, if I keep picking at these things, the game will never release. So I'm basically calling a feature and content freeze at this point. Attention will now be going completely to just bug fixes, balancing and cleaning up graphics.REFACTORING: Spent most of the week just cleaning up and refactoring the code base which has grown into a tangled mess of 40k lines over the course of the project. I'm trying to spend the time now before going into early access to get everything cleaner as its getting to the point where every addition or bug fix is introducing new bugs just due to the general mess of code. So hopefully didn't introduce to many new issues with all the clean up and hopefully this should make the game more stable in the future as I continue to work on it. For reference (in case something is crashing or doesn't appear to be working correctly), the major areas I rewrote were: *Entire inventory system *Items in general *All character movement *Status effects CONTENT: *Added 2 end levels to Vault of Yendor containing the goblet. *Added 2nd level to Arcane Tower, Sewers, Core and Ice Caves. GRAPHICS: *New tileset for Vault of Yendor. *Fixed some messed up corner tiles. *Added additional boarder tiles for water. *Added yellow spell animation for haste. *Added blue spell animation for potions of resistance and power. *Added red spell animation for potions and fountains of attributes. ABILITIES: *Significantly improved attunement talents: lots more spell power, and decreases the mana cost of associated spells for duration of effect. *Summoned skeletons now scale in level as you increase the talent. *You now summon a single skeleton per cast and require 3 mana to maintain the skeleton (no cooldown). *Summoned skeletons are stronger in general. MISC: *Removed double negative in front of negative resistance on character menu. *Death and victory text displays class *Falling down an open pit on a last level will instantly kill the player (not pit traps, they don't spawn on last levels) *Items on tables or chests are slightly raised, to appear on top (the goblet now spawns on a pedestal type table). *Added hand placed trigger tiles to activate stuff like exploding walls (used in goblet level) *Exploding drop wall rooms now agro the mobs inside when they explode. *Created a separate status effect for frozen enemies so that they don't show SS (slow, and stunned) over their heads when frozen. *Auto explore will now display 'Partially Exploded' when a level cannot be completely explored due to traps or shrooms, blocking the path. *Auto explore will now attempt to take you to the nearest obstruction once normal exploration is complete and then display 'Partially Explored'. *Staff of Storms now shows its cross targeting correctly (so player doesn't accidentally shoot himself) *Generators will now trim those odd diagonal paths that occasionally generate. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: *Ice caves end levels glyph doors should all open at same time. *Fixed merchant dart duplication bug (again). *Stopped blinking enemies from blinking out of freeze. *Stop player from using stairs with < > when dialog is open (the help text for stairs). *Stop player from acting during the brief period of the screen fade when using stairs. *Stopped static levels from spawning on MD:9 and overwriting the library. *Fixed summons not being removed from players summon list upon their death. *Fixed player not correctly saving his summons *Blinking onto a teleport pad should actually use the teleport pad. MECHANICS_AND_BALANCE: *Added pits to Arcane Tower *Removed spell casting penalties on leather armor *Scroll of Fear now has LoS range (all consumables should always be powerful) *Added negative health modifier to ring of flight so that its same as boots of same type. *Nests now destroy themselves once they run out of critters to spawn (just helps save time since they are useless at that point). *Cloth armor gives more mana bonuses. *Added missing chests to glyph rooms in a static level of the crypt. *Improved staff of poison damage 8 => 10 *Poison now deals its damage faster over time (makes poison staff more usable) *Wand of Blades now scales the number and level of the blades as the player levels up. *Wands, charms and scrolls scale their ability damage and duration higher with player level (keeps them powerful) *Fire Glyphs now creates a flaming cloud as well as the initial explosion (to keep them differentiated from shrooms) *Scaled the damage of all traps, fire pots, gas pots etc. over levels so that they remain powerful into the end game. 'Update 0.34 - November-05-2018' Actually getting reasonably close to what I'd consider a completed state for the web release and subsequent move to Steam. What I'm currently looking at on my priority list is: #Fix all remaining bugs and crashes. #Clean up graphics, add missing sound effects, add unique tiles to the Vault of Yendor, make a few more spell effects to try to cover at least most of the major spells and items. #Add more end levels so that they can be randomly selected i.e. 3 for Arcane/Sewer, 2 for Core/Ice, and 2 for Vault of Yendor with the goblet at the back. #Add a few more static levels and unique npcs to each zone to increase variety. #Do a final pass of balancing difficulty, item drops, mob spawns etc. So yeah, nearly there, mostly clean up at this point. A note on balancing. For the web release I'd like to err on the side of making the game easier. My thought process being that the web release will be going to a more general audience that might not appreciate the brutal difficulty which people who actually choose to buy the game on Steam might actually be looking for. Furthermore, considering that most of us that have been testing the game for the past 2-3 months are basically 'experts' at this point and many of us still find the game quite challenging, I'd like to keep in mind less experienced players. Obviously the point isn't to make it stupid easy, but I'd like to get to the point where us experienced players find it 'moderately' difficult which should then hit a good sweet spot of making it difficult but not impossible for newer players. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: *Allow slow player characters to 'squeeze' through diagonal gaps (taking two turns). *Fixed the red attack targeting box from being hidden behind ice. *Fixed the arcane tower golem room having hallways blocked by tables *Fixed: tricky crash that Expander got where an NPC attacks the player, killing him, and is killed in the same turn by the inferno ring. *Storm chopper and inferno sword will now crit unaware enemies just like normal melee weapons. *Fixed: confused next to enemies with a bow equipped will not try to attack the enemies resulting in the 'to close' message and not missing a turn. *Fixed Storm Mastery not giving any storm power (I keep misspelling mastAry) *Fixed crash when player tries to drop an item on the floor when there is not enough room for the item on the floor (will just not let you drop it). *Items now appear below characters. *Goblet of Yendor gives 0 exp to avoid player leveling up at same time as victory thus nullifying the victory screen. *Refreshing the game on victory screen will not all the player to then continue the same save, thus infinitely winning. *Frozen enemies can now be targeted with lightning bolts, fire balls, etc. *Made sure that the chests in the poison and fire trap vaults have a warning before opening them so that auto explore doesn't insta kill you. *Burst of flame will only spread downwards from torches rather than going 'through' walls. MISC: *Arcane tower will now spawn doors in its hallways. *Added lightning bolt to storm imp. *Added missing descriptions to storm chopper, inferno sword, and ice staff. END_LEVEL: *Added end level to the ice caves 'Update 0.33 - November-04-2018' BUGS_AND_CRASHES:*Fixed merchant duplication of darts bug (actually was effecting any stackable item). *Fixed the duplication bug that was duplicating scrolls mysteriously (was related to above issue). *Fixed merchant adjusting prices based on if the player already had an item of same time of lower mod (old legacy code from when items would simply replace). *Fixed NPCs that were supposed to be vulnerable to an element actually being resistant. *Fixed NAN hp bug after either player or npcs took damage (was related to vulnerabilities). *Summon creatures (from spawners) should no longer attack on the first turn they are spawned i.e. they miss a turn. *Saving and reloading game will no longer rest the duration of status effects to max. *Fixed grass occasionally spawning on water. *Fixed ring of life saving to actually save you upon death and guarantee that its the players turn. *The glyph doors in The Core end level will now be correctly 'guarded' i.e. will warn player before opening. *If you sprint onto a red mushroom or trap your player will no longer try to attack it with a weapon either ranged or spear. *In general, when holding shift i.e. triggering unsafe move, if you click to move to a trap your character will actually move there rather than trying to trigger it with a weapon. *Fixed power striking or knocking back enemies into bear traps leaving behind and invisible version of enemy. *Fixed players summon skeleton spell from summoning skeletons above pits. BALANCE: *1 skill point per level *1 talent point per level (except on levels where the player gets attribute points) *Reduced the chance of getting scrolls from bookshelves (more likely to get skill or talent points). *Split staves off of the weapon drop table so summoning weapons in acquirement will no longer produce staves. *Stopped crypt skeletons from respawning to balance out challenge (and annoyance) with The Dark Temple. The skeleton respawning mechanic will eventually be tied to some sort of dark altar in the crypt that only spawns on some levels and can be destroyed by player to stop the respawns. *Resistance and vulnerabilities are more noticeable now at higher levels. I had to remember that due to random rolls, a 100% reduction in damage (rolled randomly) is only really a 50% reduction on average. 'Update 0.32 - November-03-2018' USER_INTERFACE: *Moving around stuff in the character menu. *Highlight shield slot red if wielding a two handed weapon. *Show generic spell power and only show, fire, shock, toxic etc. if different from general spell power. *Display game timer as 0:05 instead of 0:5 *Moved targeting box (green, red, purple), below the hit point text layer so you can see enemy health when targeting over them. *Highlight in green talents the player has met level requirements to learn. *Sort available talents by level. BUGS_AND_CRASHES: *Can now used number keys 7,8 to trigger talents *Fixed character menu not opening on rogue (and many other characters). *Allow player to cancel targeted consumable items by clicking on them again. *Fixed a visual bug with big trees in the under grove. *Fixed a soft crash when player is confused. *Much more permissive handling of npcs 'pulled' up or down stairs (should work with much larger groups). *Fixed crash when a flesh golem or boa constrictor tries to constrict you after a strafe dodge. MISC: *Made goblins less common in dungeon levels 4-8 *Made orcs less common in dungeon levels 9-12 *Glyph rooms can have more enemies in them in deeper dungeon levels. *Acid slimes and corrosive slimes are now immune to poison gas *Increased damage slightly of splitting slimes (be careful getting surrounded) ITEMS: *Hellfire scrolls now scale in damage with player level (like wands). *Wands and items scale higher in damage based on player level to keep them powerful. (Consumable items should always have a very powerful effect). *Reduced cooldowns on the offensive charms from 250 => 150 to make them more useful compared to healing and blinking. *Weighted drop tables slightly more in favor of consumables. (I'd like the strategic management and use of consumables to be a larger part of the end game rather than simply having an invincible character due to gear, talents, skills etc. *Removed energy requirement on elemental staves. (Rare, good items, should just be good). *Increased damage on all consumable throwing items (again, consumable items should be powerful). *Made sure merchants always stock at least a single potion. *Moved guaranteed merchant from MD:6 to MD:9 to put him in the center of the game world (makes it easier to back track to him). NPCS: *Reduced the number of NPCs somewhat in the later levels of the game to stop it getting grindy. *May increase their strength later in order to balance. END_LEVELS: *Arcane tower super challenge end level with big reward. *The Core super challenge end level with big reward. ARCANE_TOWER: *Allow arcane tower to gen vaults and added a few vaults. *Round arcane tower rooms *New arcane tower pillar so its not just reusing from other zones. RESISTANCE: *Resistance simply goes I, II, III rather than percent with 40%, 60% and 70% reduction. *Helps make stats a bit chunkier (I prefer to avoid really finicky little stats) *Resistance reduction (and vulnerability adding damage) is center rolled now to make it more consistent.